SOURCE: Proffitt, Bessie. “Religious Symbolism in Otway's Venice Preserv'd.” Papers on Language and Literature 7, no. 1 (winter 1971): 26-37.

[In the following essay, Proffitt argues that critics have often ignored one of the subtlest aspects of Venice Preserv'd, namely the play's biblical imagery and themes.]

The complexity of Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd has led to a wide range of critical opinions, each of which has obvious and legitimate claims to accuracy. For example, “the horrors of political and sexual corruption” which William H. McBurney sees in the play clearly are basic to any reading of it.¹ In the same vein, R. E. Hughes concentrates upon the “nightmarish” world of Venice which is revealed primarily through the Nicky Nacky scenes.² By pointing out that Venice is far more corrupt than Pierre, Jaffeir, and Belvidera, Hughes demonstrates that the historic opinion that Venice Preserv'd is simply a condemnation of the Popish Plot, while undoubtedly containing grains of truth, is an oversimplification of the play.³ Indeed, as W. Van Voris notes, there is considerable evidence that the Restoration audience realized the play had a much wider significance even on the political level.⁴ And going far beyond contemporary political references, David R. Hauser remarks upon the universality of theme in Venice Preserv'd and points out that it is an “essentially religious” play which concerns in some way man's innate capabilities of both good and evil and that it is filled with “cosmic references.”⁵ That this wide diversity of critical opinion should exist and that it should so increasingly be directed toward universality of theme indicates that Venice Preserv'd, far from being a simple play, is as complex as the human nature it seems to explore.

Although the critics have, it is obvious, examined well and in depth both the play's theme of the inconstancy of human nature and its pervasive sensuality, they have neglected the relationship of these elements to the play's religious symbolism. The purpose of this paper, then, is to carry the understanding of Venice Preserv'd one step further by establishing this connection. The evidence for the deep religious significance of the play lies not only in direct comments by several characters (notably the morally sensitive Renault) upon the inconstancy of human nature but also in the biblical parallels and allusions which permeate the play. The symbols are, however, never direct; Otway makes no explicit statement of his religious intent. The reader or audience must infer it from the language of the play. And the importance of the language may be overlooked because biblical diction and references are common in seventeenth-century literature. Yet many events and images in the play seem hopelessly confused until the appropriate biblical parallels are brought to bear upon them. Indeed, this apparent lack of meaning suggests that Otway expected his audience to make the necessary associations.

Although many allusions and images require these associations to become clear, it is relatively easy to perceive, as many critics have, that the world of Venice Preserv'd is a fallen world filled with lust, deceit, and betrayal. But emotional reactions to the characters (for example, sympathy for Belvidera) obscure their function as personifications of the imperfection inherent in fallen human nature. Since the play seems to dwell upon the problems of postlapsarian mankind, it is not surprising that much of its imagery is clearly drawn from the account of the Fall in Genesis, or that this imagery eventually leads to the “Crucifixion” and “Last Judgment” scenes in act 5.

Less obviously, the sensuality pervading the play is closely linked to the sexual symbolism which fills Genesis and Revelation; in Genesis sexual concupiscence is the consequence of the Fall and the mark of postlapsarian man, whereas in Revelation the evil of the Whore of Babylon is expressed in sexual terms. Otway reveals the evil of Venice by casting her into the role of the Whore of Babylon and by making her representative, Antonio, a figure whose sexual perversion reflects her underlying corruption. But despite her depravity, Venice is preserved because Pierre, Jaffeir, and Belvidera, whose fallen natures are also portrayed in sexual terms, are too imperfect to prevail against the capital of sin. These three characters are acutely aware of their need to expiate some sin by a personal sacrifice. In striving for resolutions to the moral problems of Venice, each takes on an identifiable religious role. The vacillation and sensuality of Jaffeir mark him as the old Adam; although at times he nearly rises to the stature of the new Adam, Christ, he also sinks to the level of Judas. Pierre appears more consistently as a Christ figure, but his early identification as the Devil and his inability to discern obvious facts indicate that he, too, remains the old Adam. Belvidera seldom alters her Eve-like role, but she occasionally resembles the Virgin Mary. Simple as these theological associations seem, they are not immediately evident; only a careful, more or less chronological, analysis of the play and its religious symbols will reveal their hidden meaning.

The opening scene immediately sets upon both the religious imagery and the ironic undercutting of that imagery. When Priuli thrusts his only child and her husband into the world, both he and Jaffeir speak of the event in terms which reflect the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. To himself, Priuli seems as inexorable and just as God when he tells Jaffeir to “Get Brats and Starve,” a fate roughly parallel to Eve's condemnation to painful childbirth and Adam's to wringing sustenance from a hostile earth.⁶ But Priuli is not God, and the shower of curses which he rains upon Jaffeir reveals Priuli's fundamental human frailty—a frailty to which he is eventually forced to confess:

Or would that I'd been anything but man,
…
The vilest Beasts are happy in their off-springs,
While onely man gets traitours, whores and villains.

[5.1.10-16]

Yet Priuli's anger is to some degree justified, for Jaffeir and Belvidera have partly brought this fate upon themselves.

The ambiguity of the moral situation establishes the essential imperfection of all mankind. Jaffeir's use of the theologically important term Redeem'd (1. 1. 41) to describe his rescue of Belvidera demonstrates the impossibility of man's overcoming this deficiency in a merely worldly frame of reference. The word appears again in the fourth act, where Jaffeir is told by the duke that he must betray his friends in order to “redeem” his honor (4. 1. 139). Thus both love and honor, polarities in the transient code which is tied to the world of fallen human nature, are viewed in the infinite perspective of the Christian analogy. Significantly, Jaffeir can “redeem” the mortal life of his love “with half the loss of mine” (1. 1. 41), whereas the total sacrifice of his life is necessary actually to “redeem” his honor. Eventually, honor becomes the positive note in the play, but in the first act this note has not yet been struck, and the imagery, drawn from the description in Genesis of the Garden of Eden, sets up a biblical symbolism which is ironically limited by the discrepancy between human and divine acts.

And as temptations must beset fallen man, Pierre now tempts Jaffeir; however, true to the ambivalence of this play, Pierre afterward suddenly shifts from a satanic, Iago-like figure to a Christlike figure. There are clues, even in Pierre's tirade against Antonio and the Senate, that he is something other than a mere libertine seeking political vengeance for his affront by the old senator Antonio, who has stolen Pierre's whore. His references to Antonio as “A Haggard Owl, a Worthless Kite of Prey” (1. 1. 178) and “That filthy Cuckoo” (1. 1. 189) are auguries of his later implicit likening of Venice to the Whore of Babylon (2. 1. 292-95) and his reference to the Senate as “baleful, unclean Birds” (2. 1. 167).⁷ In the apocalyptic account of the Whore of Babylon, she is seen as “the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird” (Rev. 18:2). Thus even though Pierre is seen as desiring revenge for purely personal, and none too honorable, reasons, the groundwork for his assumption of a Christ role is being prepared.

But first he must seem a devil who is tempting Jaffeir. By having Pierre appear satanic, Otway underscores both the weakness of the fallen Jaffeir and the more forceful imperfection of Pierre. At his worst, Jaffeir can only become Judas-like, but Pierre, who reaches more intense heights and depths, can appear satanic.⁸ When Jaffeir meets Pierre at midnight, he thinks of his friend with all the power of religion and superstition:

I've heard, how desperate Wretches, like my self,
Have wander'd out at this dead time of Night
To meet the Foe of Mankind in his walk:
Sure, I am so Curst that, tho' of Heav'n forsaken,
No Minister of Darkness cares to Tempt me.

[2.1.71-75]

It is a curious bit of psychology that Jaffeir wishes to meet Pierre at midnight. Since there is no good reason, other than its value as a commonplace, for the selection of this hour, it serves to emphasize the characters' vain attempts to rise to abstract ideals. Because Jaffeir is expecting to be tempted, he immediately translates Pierre's offer of aid into the Devil's attempt to buy his soul (2. 1. 10). Pierre meets Jaffeir's accusation with surprise, and reminds him that they are dealing with a base world:

                                                                                                                                  … Is the World
Reform'd since our last meeting? What new miracles
Have happen'd?

[2.1.106-07]

With his vision of the corrupt world, Pierre departs from his satanic role. And while it is true that Pierre retains some demonic traits throughout the act, his greater nature now appears in the biblical tone and diction of

                                                                      … But as thou art a Man,
Whom I have pickt and chosen from the World.

[2.1.135-36]

Even the reference to “spirits” in the preceding line seems no longer to imply that Pierre is Satan. He begins to take on Godlike dimensions, and the divinity which is implicit in his statement is now clarified, for he will tell Jaffeir “that which only Gods / And Men like Gods are privy to” (2. 1. 138-39). If Pierre knows such secrets, then he is a god, or a man like a god, and his choosing men from the world has the tone of a Christ choosing his disciples.

Even though Pierre denies that religion is involved in his cause (2. 1. 156), he seems to be speaking of a religion which is only hypocrisy—the kind of religion to be expected in the Whore of Babylon. Moreover, Pierre's remark, while still in the satanic aspect of his role, that “A Souldier's Mistress Jaffeir's his Religion” (1. 1. 199), serves to connect both Satan and a whore to religion; and, of course, to become a Christ figure Pierre must not admit the presence of this “religion” in his cause. It is interesting to note that the whore Aquilina later speaks of herself as a hypocrite (2. 1. 32-33), thus uniting both religion and hypocrisy in a whore who, since Pierre abandons her after assuming his Christ role, appears as the mistress of the Devil.

Another kind of religion is brought to mind when Bedamar reminds the rebels that they have been selected by quasi-divine means; they are “Men separated by the Choice of Providence, / From the gross heap of Mankind” (2. 1. 224-25). Pierre now speaks of Venice in terms which echo the apocalyptic description of the Whore of Babylon (Rev. 17:18):

How lovely the Adriatique Whore,(9)
Dresst in her Flames, will shine! devouring Flames!
Such as shall burn her to the watery bottom
And hiss in her Foundation!

[2.1.292-95]

And with this speech the earlier references to unclean birds and beasts and to men chosen from the world become clear. Venice is not a mere state: in theological terms, she is the capital of sin, “the great whore that sitteth upon many waters” (Rev. 17:1). Like the Whore of Babylon, Venice will be “Burning with flames rather from Heav'n than ours” (3. 2. 377). The scene of destruction resembles that of the Whore and of the satanic armies in Revelation: “She shall be utterly burned with one fire” (Rev. 18:8), “And fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them” (Rev. 20:9). Further, neither Venice nor the Whore of Babylon is totally corrupt; both cities have residents who should be saved before the general destruction begins (2. 1. 296-98; Rev. 18:4).

The identification of Venice with the Whore of Babylon is cemented by the Nicky Nacky scenes. The foul perversion and lust of the decrepit old senator, Antonio, underscore the fundamental depravity of Venice. Earlier in the play both Antonio (1. 1. 178, 189) and the rest of the Senate (2. 1. 167-68) have been termed foul and evil birds and are thus associated with the Whore of Babylon. Aquilina, a real whore who is linked by the demonic Pierre's “nest” metaphor (1. 1. 190-91) to the foul birds and the Whore, essentially is evil (one notes the toad images by which both she [3. 1. 90] and Antonio [3. 1. 11] are characterized), but she is alloyed with good. For when the masochistic Antonio pretends that he is a dog and desires her to whip him, she is able to drive him out with a whip and a bell in a scene which strongly suggests exorcism (3. 1. 115-25). Dogs have long served as symbols of evil and death, and here the dog certainly seems to be a demonic spirit.¹⁰ This evil dog is in direct contrast to Pierre's concept of dogs as “honest Creatures” (2. 1. 81). The contrast is made explicit when Aquilina follows a reference to Antonio as a “Beast” (3. 1. 137), recalling the evil beast of the Whore of Babylon, with an allusion to Pierre as “God-like” (3. 1. 144). Once again, the “God-like” Pierre is brought into conflict with the capital of sin, which is represented by Antonio.

The theological importance which Venice has assumed thus points up the Christ role of Pierre. His rebellion no longer appears a man's petty quarrel against a state but rather the struggle of Christ against the Whore of Babylon. Bedamar says of Pierre:

                                                                                                    … Oh my Mars!
The Poets that first feign'd a God of War
Sure prophesy'd of thee.

[2.1.245-47]

Christ, the Word of God, is the “God of War” in Revelation; he wars against the Whore and her beast.¹¹ The manifestation of Pierre's divine nature in the second act is reaffirmed throughout the play. Aquilina's reference to Pierre as “God-like Lover” is reinforced by Jaffeir's cry to Pierre: “… there dwells a God-like nature in thee” (4. 1. 285). Having betrayed Pierre, the Judas-like Jaffeir recognizes the enormity of his sin and cries that wretches such as he must

Creep with a remnant of that strength th'have left,
Before the footstool of that Heav'n th'have injured.

[4.1.401-02]

In this case, “Heav'n” implies the essential divinity of Pierre.

The theological depth and meaning of the play, however, ultimately depend more heavily upon Jaffeir and Belvidera than upon Pierre. Pierre is a figure larger than life, but he lacks the common human failings which are represented by Jaffeir and Belvidera. It is Jaffeir and Belvidera who are expelled from the Garden of Eden, lament their lost peace (3. 2. 27-37; 3. 2. 372), see the destruction about them as the Last Judgment (5. 1. 219-27, 349-62), and constantly offer themselves as sacrifices. Early in the play, Jaffeir makes repeated references to the Creation, as he questions his own created nature, which cannot be contented (1. 1. 308-15), and marvels upon Belvidera (1. 1. 382), who is later specifically associated with a “Bone,” i.e., Adam's rib, as she is persuading Jaffeir to betray the conspiracy. Also, at this point Jaffeir remarks that she has been faced with temptations (3. 2. 238).

Of course, there may be some question as to who is responsible for these temptations; after all, Jaffeir has surrendered her to the conspirators in her nightdress, thus making her an object to tempt Renault. And she deliberately tempts Jaffeir: “… think a little, e're thou tempt me further” (3. 2. 129). Jaffeir gives way to his ardor for his wife and chooses her over Creation itself: “… I would not live without thee / Another Night, to purchase the Creation” (3. 2. 204-05). To do this, he must violate the vows to which he has “bound himself by all the strictest Sacraments, / Divine and humane” (3. 2. 138-39); he is no longer “The sworn and Covenanted foe of Venice” (4. 1. 145). The use of the words Sacraments and Covenanted indicates that Jaffeir has broken a vow which transcends the human.

The serpent in this Garden of Eden is Jaffeir's dagger; he warns Belvidera concerning his dagger, “there's a lurking serpent / Ready to leap and sting thee to thy heart” (4. 1. 484-85). And later, she acknowledges that they have fallen: “When our sting'd hearts have leap'd to meet each other” (5. 1. 247). Belvidera's speech occurs in one of the most frankly sensual passages in the play, immediately following the Aquilina-Antonio dagger scene. In that scene, as William T. McBurney points out, the sexual significance of the dagger is brought out when Aquilina threatens Antonio with a dagger only to arouse him to a sexual “death.”¹² The connection between the dagger and the serpent implies that the love and honor with which Jaffeir's dagger is associated throughout the play are concepts of fallen man. When Jaffeir's open, sensual nature responds to Belvidera's appeals, he reveals his innate weakness.

This weakness nevertheless is not altogether bad, for favorable bird imagery, in contrast to the evil birds, is connected with the passion of Jaffeir and Belvidera, who constantly seek to atone for their sins.¹³ The Bible expresses good as well as evil in sexual images, and Jaffeir's comparison of himself to a “panting turtle” (2. 1. 430) recalls the erotic imagery of the Song of Solomon (2:12), which is usually understood to symbolize the relationship of God to his Church (for example, the Church as the Bride of Christ). Jaffeir's reference to himself as a “Travell'd Dove” (3. 2. 208) carries the implication of a fallen nature, for the most famous of all “travell'd doves” is the one sent out from Noah's ark, following the destruction of the world for its sins (Gen. 8:8-11). Further, the “nest” metaphor which is associated with Belvidera (3. 2. 49-51) is favorable, and she is associated with an angel. In the eviction scene she is portrayed between two virgins; the biblical tone suggests that Belvidera, while she is Eve-like, has in her something of the second Eve, the Blessed Virgin Mary.¹⁴ The enamored Jaffeir imagines that the “Seal of providence” (4. 1. 524 ff.) is upon Belvidera, but he comes to see that this seal is ambiguous in its nature, for he says, “Oh, thou wert either born to save or damn me!” (4. 1. 526). And Belvidera herself realizes her error; she had boasted to Jaffeir of her “Roman Constancy” and then had betrayed him; now, she meditates the tragedy that she has wrought through her inconstancy. But, of course, she can understand the tragedy only in relation to herself; she must look down. “Bending these miserable eyes to earth, / Must move in penance, and implore much Mercy” (4. 1. 395-96).

She is, indeed, a creation much like Milton's selfish Eve, who can reach salvation only through Adam. Limited, scheming, and unintelligent, Belvidera still is constant in her love for Jaffeir. She is tainted with the sexual curse of the Fall, and her “love” is an expression of her limitation. She plays upon the passions of her husband and upon the paternal affection of Priuli to gain her ends, but her genuine love partly exonerates her. She prophesied her madness, “Oh, I will love thee, even in Madness love thee” (1. 1. 371), and she dies for love; “Oh, now how I'll snuggle him! / My Love! my Dear! my Blessing!” (5. 1. 506-07). In the end, love becomes a limited and destructive, but also favorable, concept.

Jaffeir's moral quality is equally ambiguous; he is torn between his sensual love for his wife and the ties of honor by which Pierre holds him. One truly ironic example of the ambivalent mixture of good and evil in Jaffeir is Pierre's speech in which he sees Jaffeir as Christlike—Jaffeir who, meanwhile, is on his way to betray the conspiracy:

Oh could you know him all as I have known him,
How good he is, how just, how true, how brave,
You wou'd not leave this place till you had seen him;
Humbled yourselves before him, kiss'd his feet,
And gain'd remission for the worst of follies.

[3.2.483-87]

Despite this speech likening him to Christ and despite his own “sacrificial lamb” passage (4. 1. 87-94), Jaffeir is not the new Adam, but rather the old Adam, cursed with the imperfection and inconstancy of his fallen nature. A striking manifestation of Jaffeir's limited nature is his obsession with sacrificing Belvidera: he cannot comprehend that he must sacrifice himself. Jaffeir reaches the ultimate nadir of fallen man when he appears as Judas in the arrest and “Crucifixion” scenes. In the arrest scene, which has an obvious resemblance to the trials of Christ, first before the elders and then before Pilate, the very words of the betrayed Pierre echo those of Christ to Judas: “My friend too bound?” (4. 1. 249). The analogue is in Matthew: “Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come?” (26:50).

Jaffeir, who already realizes that he has behaved like Judas (4. 1. 205-11), now cries to Pierre for forgiveness. But Pierre casts off his betrayer with the words, “I know thee not” (4. 1. 289).¹⁵ These words, coupled with the later threat, “Never from this curs'd hour to hold communion” (4. 1. 365) with Jaffeir, operate to give a more than secular import to the betrayal of Pierre.¹⁶ Even Belvidera understands that Jaffeir has reason to mourn for his betrayal of Pierre (4. 1. 410-13). Jaffeir's resemblance to Judas is drawn even finer as he recognizes that, like Judas, it has been his “immortal destiny” (5. 1. 324) to betray Pierre.¹⁷ The Christlike Pierre goes to his death refusing the aid of a priest, because “Heaven and I are friends” (5. 1. 375). Pierre's final sacrifice for honor reflects the necessity of Christ's death on the cross, and Jaffeir, through his courageous choice to stab both himself and Pierre, becomes a part of that sacrifice. Pierre's voluntary choice of stabbing acts to give the pseudo-Crucifixion scene the required air of self-sacrifice. Jaffeir emphasizes the similarity between the cross and Pierre's rack when he says that if the guiltless Pierre is broken upon the rack, “honest men will hereafter bear its figure / About 'em, as a charm from treacherous friendship” (5. 1. 419-20), just as pious men wear symbols of the cross. Further, while Jaffeir's act of self-purification is a classical libation, his last words recall the speech of Pilate as he washes his hands of Christ's blood:

                                                                                                    Now, ye curs'd Rulers,
Thus of the blood y'have shed I make Libation,
And sprinkle't mingling: May it rest upon you,
And all your Race.(18)

[5.1.469-72]

And Pierre has indeed become a Christ figure.

But he is a limited Christ figure; he, too, is tainted with human imperfection. He cannot be “God,” but only “Godlike.” His death is actually for “honor,” but the play implies that honor, while a favorable concept, is irretrievably linked to the fallen world. It is, however, superior to love; greater significance is attached to Pierre's rack than to Jaffeir's “Rack of ardent longing” (2. 1. 428). Still, Pierre regards his suicide as a deception of the Senate, and he is blind to the murderous potential of his scheme.¹⁹ And even though Pierre actually does not participate in the sexual sin of the play, it must be remembered that he originally became involved because of his sexual attachment to Aquilina.

Also, even though Pierre is the more forceful figure, it is Jaffeir and Belvidera who understand the importance of the struggle against Venice. Jaffeir depicts the destruction of the city in terms of the Last Judgment (5. 1. 219-27), and his description of the burning is phrased in terms of the burning of the Whore of Babylon: “… let Venice burn / Hotter than all the rest: Here kindle Hell / Ne'r to extinguish” (5. 1. 224-26). “And her smoke rose up for ever and ever” is the comparable verse in Revelation (19:3). Belvidera, too, foresees the Last Judgment, but, true to her limited nature, she can comprehend it only in relation to herself. Yet perhaps her greater limitation gives her greater insight, for she is the only character who speaks of a Resurrection: “There sleep in peace till an eternal morning” (5. 1. 278).

These three major characters merely illustrate the inability of imperfect human nature to destroy evil. Pierre, Jaffeir, and the conspirators cannot destroy Venice, for the Whore of Babylon must be destroyed by the true and perfect Christ, rather than by an imperfect and limited Christ figure. While Renault is the clearest example of the way in which “Irregular Man's ne're constant, never certain” (2. 1. 207), every other character in the play displays the same inconstancy to a greater or lesser degree. Otway points out, through the use of biblical imagery and allusions, that this inconstancy is the mark of fallen man.

Notes

1. William H. McBurney, “Otway's Tragic Muse Debauched: Sensuality in Venice Preserv'd,” JEGP 58 (1959): 398.

2. R. E. Hughes, “‘Comic Relief’ in Otway's ‘Venice Preserv'd,’” N & Q 203 (1958): 65-66.

3. This position is probably best represented by the notes in George H. Nettleton and Arthur E. Case, eds., British Dramatists from Dryden to Sheridan (Cambridge, 1939), pp. 117-50. Their argument is seriously flawed because it fails to take into account the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century definition of Italy and Venice as capitals of corruption. See, for example, Robert Ornstein's discussion of Tourneur in The Moral Vision of Jacobean Tragedy (Madison and Milwaukee, 1965), p. 107.

4. W. Van Voris, “Tragedy through Restoration Eyes: Venice Preserv'd in its own Theatre,” Hermathena 99 (1964): 55-65. Van Voris points out that Otway's rapid decline from royal favor dated from the first performance of Venice Preserv'd.

5. David R. Hauser, “Otway Preserved: Theme and Form in Venice Preserv'd,” SP 55 (1958): 485-86, 489.

6. J. C. Ghosh, ed., The Works of Thomas Otway: Plays, Poems, and Love-Letters (Oxford, 1932), 2: 207, l. 109. All further references will be given by act, scene, and line numbers in the text.

7. McBurney (pp. 395n-96n) notices the remarkable quantity of bird imagery in the play but does not see it in relation to biblical sources.

8. Early in the play Otway has clearly drawn upon Shakespeare's Iago for his characterization of Pierre, but this comparison effectively ends with the two parallel scenes in which Iago (Shakespeare: Major Plays, ed. G. B. Harrison [New York, 1948], Othello, 5. 2. 287) and Pierre (2. 1. 100) are branded as devils.

9. Gordon Williams points out that “hardly anyone can escape contamination” because Venice and, later, the Adriatic are whores. See “The Sex-Death Motive in Otway's Venice Preserv'd,” Trivium 2 (1967): 61.

10. Cf. Ps. 22:20; William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, and John Ford, The Witch of Edmonton; T. S. Eliot, “Marina”; Robert Browning, “The Cardinal and the Dog”; and, of course, Goethe's Faust, part 1.

11. Note the historic tendency of scholars to twist classical poetry into Christian prophecy in order to make such “pagan” writing acceptable. For example, the Rev. Frank P. Cassidy examines the struggle of the Fathers to adjust such literature to Christianity in Molders of the Medieval Mind: The Influence of the Fathers of the Church on the Medieval Schoolmen (Port Washington, N.Y., 1966), pp. 168-69, 172. And Arthur W. Hoffman discusses Dryden's problems (as well as those of Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton) in accommodating the classical to the Christian, in John Dryden's Imagery (Gainesville, Fla., 1962), pp. 16-17.

12. McBurney, p. 389. Williams, p. 66, has noted that Belvidera also responds sexually to the dagger.

13. McBurney, pp. 395n-96n.

14. Hauser, pp. 491-92, sees Belvidera as a Christ figure, but this picture seems more like the Virgin Mary.

15. These words curiously echo St. Peter's denial of Christ (John 18:17-27) and may suggest that Pierre is both a St. Peter figure and a Christ figure.

16. Hauser, p. 491.

17. Cf.

    Acts 1:16:

    “Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.”

18. Cf.

    Matt. 27:24-25:

    “He [Pilate] took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.”

19. Hauser, p. 487.